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From Military.com:
Retired Four-Star Gives Presidential Pick
Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark said Thursday he wants the American public to understand what a "great commander in chief" President Barack Obama is.
Sounds a lot more interesting than "Former Democrat presidential candidate endorses current Democrat presidential candidate," doesn't it?
7 comments:
Democratic party toadie toes Democratic party line isn't much of an improvement either.
Only reason that this is news is because Wesley Clark is a retired general officer, rare bird that he is (Democrat white male flag officer).
Otherwise, nothing to see here.
I don't think that liberal flag officer is that rare. What is rare is that they get into partisan politics when staying "above that" is a military virtue. What makes him rare is rejecting the virtues of his profession to go swimming in the cesspool.
Spending 30 years in the military teaches Flag officers that they are always right and that they have a moral obligation to interfere in other people's lives, for their own good. 30 years of govt health care. 30 years of govt housing. 30 years of caring for every need and social benefit program that their staff can dream up. Many of them can't see it, but they are all liberals by the time they make general. It is best for us that most still regard politics as immoral.
In all the time I have been in the army, I have never seen a general officer make a single decision to increase the personal liberty of his troops. But I have seen most of them keep quiet while liberties were stripped away.
natural liberals, every one.
"I don't think that liberal flag officer is that rare."
I have never met a conservative flag officer. I think they are rare. Met plenty of conservative O-6s, but somehow they never make the jump to flag. Of course, most of them don't regardless of their politics, but I still feel conservatives are underrepresented at the flag level.
No doubt their sensitive political antennae tell them that openly expressing conservative views will only cause trouble when it comes to getting that all-important next star...
In all the time I have been in the army, I have never seen a general officer make a single decision to increase the personal liberty of his troops.
Well said.
Mrs Phi argues that increasing a soldier's personal liberty isn't an officer's job; rather, it is to maintain good order and discipline. But at the least, it does condition officers to approach problems with a prejudice towards "making people do or not do stuff."
It's always irked me that military commanders seem organically unable to allow people working on base to assume and manage risk in the way everyone else in the country does every day. Consider guns, for instance. With the exception of a handful of places acting in contravention of the constitution, every jurisdiction in the country allows a citizen to keep a firearm in his car as he goes about his business. Yet no base commanders allow this.
Yet no base commanders allow this.
They wouldn't even consider it.
While Mrs Phi's argument is valid, it is beside the point. Officers who lead FREE citizens have a different task than officers who command slave conscripts.
It is known that soldiers give up much of their freedoms in order to serve in themilitary, but there is no rational basis for why it has to be that way. It is not an inherent characteristic of military service to give up all your freedoms. It is merely a habit, left over from the days of conscript armies, taught to us from Europeans and their practices of aristocrats mobilizing armies of serfs, because they had that authority.
Our nation recgnizes no such aristocracy or authority. Some day, I hope our military grows up and starts matching the real values of our nations with the values of military service.
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